Continued from Part I…

Under certain conditions of light her skin appears cream-colored. In other times her skin is dark olive like virgin dirt. One would be tempted to say that her sparkling eyes are amber, but they unmistakably throw off glints of blue in direct sunlight. Her breasts are full and voluptuous, and her torso and legs slim and contoured. Sometimes she seems innocent and sincere, perhaps no more than eighteen or nineteen years of age. In other poses her predatory smile portrays a much older spirit.

On the northern slopes she rests seductively on a ledge, covered only by a string of sapphires across her lower torso. A single saber tooth hangs suspended from a black cord around her neck. This was the woman as concubine.

In the lush tropics she is a plaintive innocent, laid out on a stone dias for sacrifice atop a Mayan temple. This was the woman as a virgin.

In the East she is a ferocious Kali, her breasts and torso wildly painted and knives in each of her eight arms. Thousands bow to her in worship in the cities and along the hills. This was the woman as death.

In the American West she sits on a checkered blanket in the fields, her hair streaked with blond highlights. She wears a white blouse knotted above her belly button and what the early Americans called “jeans.” Her smile is welcoming, and a large picnic basket at her side reveals bread and meats. This was the woman as fertility.

Undoubtedly, she was all women.

And undoubtedly Michael Spectra was the strangest of men. As the curator of the first museum dedicated solely to virtual art I’ve met all kinds of digital artists. They range from the vicious and inhuman to the drug-induced and morose. The one common thread between them is that they all have amazing egos when it comes to their work and cyberart in general. All of them come from one school of thought or another and run with artists of similar thought.

Not Spectra. He had no family or personal contacts whatsoever, and rarely attended even his own gallery openings. He was a recluse in the truest sense of the word. And to say that he was disinterested with the rest of the art world would be an understatement.

I was then astonished to discover him in the museum near closing time quietly pondering “The Four Corners of the World” exhibit.

To be continued…